Cora Tanner’s Cold Cream

Shave 2 ounces of white wax and 40 grains of spermaceti into 7 ounces of oil of almonds. Melt together over gentle fire. When quite dissolved, add 5 ounces of best rose water, and beat till cold with egg beater.

Source: Flint Hills Cook Book

For Chapped Hands

Prepare:

1 oz white wax
1 oz spermacetti [sic]
2 oz almond oil
3/4 oz powdered camphor

Melt all except the camphor together in a jar standing in a saucepan of boiling water, and when dissolved beat the powdered camphor into the mixture and put in small jars for use upon the hands night and morning.

Source: Household Management, E. Stoddard Eckford & M.S. Fitzgerald

Camphor Balls

For rubbing on the hands, to prevent chaps, etc.– Melt three drachms of spermaceti, four drachms of white wax, and one ounce of almond oil; stir in three drachms of powdered camphor. Pour the compound into small gallipots, so as to form small hemispherical cakes. They may be colored with alkanet, if preferred.

Source: Our Knowledge Box, ed. G. Blackie

Cold Cream

Melt one ounce oil of almonds, half ounce spermaceti, one drachm white wax, and then add two ounces of rose-water, and stir it constantly until cold.

Source: The White House Cookbook, F.L. Gillette

Lip-Salve

Melt one ounce white wax, one ounce sweet oil, one drachm spermaceti, and throw in a piece of alkanet root to color it, and when cooling, perfume it with oil rose, and then pour it into small white jars or boxes.

Source: The White House Cookbook, F.L. Gillette

Cold Cream

Melt together two ounces of oil of almonds, and one drachm each of white wax and spermaceti ; while warm add two ounces of rose-water, and orange flower water half an ounce. Nothing better than this will be found in the range of toilet salves.”

Source: The Housekeeper’s Friend: A Practical Cookbook

Camphor Ice

Melt together over a water bath white wax and spermaceti each one ounce, camphor two ounces, sweet almond oil, one pound, then triturate until the mixture has become homogeneous, and allow one pound of rose-water to flow in slowly during the operation. Excellent for chapped lips or hands.

Source: The White House Cookbook, F.L. Gillette

Lip Salve

Put into a wide-mouthed bottle four ounces of the best olive oil, with one ounce of the small parts of alkanet root. Stop up the bottle, and set it in the sun, (shaking it often,) till you find the liquid of a beautiful crimson. Then strain off the oil very clear from the alkanet root, put it into an earthen pipkin, and add to it an ounce of white wax, and an ounce and a half of the best mutton suet, which has been previously clarified, or boiled and skimmed. Set the mixture on the embers of coals, and melt it slowly: stirring it well. After it has simmered slowly far a little while, take it off; and while still hot, mix with it a few drops of oil of roses, or of oil of neroli, or tincture of musk.

Source: Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches, Eliza Leslie

Remedy for Croup

One pint of olive oil, 1 ounce of gum camphor (pulverized), 2 ounces of white wax. Pour the olive oil into a covered vessel, place it over the fire, add the gum camphor and let slowly boil until the camphor is all dissolved, then add the wax, stirring thoroughly, until melted. Pour the contents of the vessel into glass jars and screw the tops firmly down. Keep in a dark place. This salve is to be used as a plaster over the throat and chest. In my own experience I have found it to be a most excellent remedy for croup. It is also very good for asthma.

Source: Tested Recipe Cook Book, Mrs H.L. Wilson

Toothache Wax

Into two parts of melted white wax or spermaceti one part of carbolic acid crystals and two parts of chloral hydrate crystals are introduced, and the whole well stirred. Into this liquid thin layers of carbolized cotton wool are introduced and allowed to dry. A plug of this, slightly warmed, inserted into a hollow tooth, is said to give immediate relief.

Source: Audel’s Household Helps, Hints and Receipts